Eliminating Communication

A few days ago L suggested we start toilet training the wee one. I was reluctant at first, but she made a very convincing case for it. She came across this idea called Elimination Communication, which is a pretty daft name for a form of toilet training. But I suppose DAUT was too obscure a backronym.

EC as a whole has a lot of pretty tweaked ideas, but at its heart makes sense – babies have to learn to defecate in their clothes, which they need to unlearn later. Take advantage of this before they get too used to sitting in their own yukky stuffs. The idea that the lass can be toilet trained now at 5 months is something I can heartily endorse. It could take months, but even one less nappy to change would be appreciated.

So we've been taking turns holding the girl on the toilet seat waiting for her to get the idea. As far as I can tell, so far she just thinks we're nuts and that she was perfectly happy going when and where she pleased. And why does she now have to sit on a cold hard chair, risking falling into a scary tub of water, while we sing to her and make excited faces encouraging something to happen. What. Do you want me to giggle? Cause, as far as I can tell, it's the only thing I'm doing that gets any positive response.

I bought a baby training seat for the loo to make the process a little less scary, but she's still not getting it. Well, plenty of time for her to warm to the idea. It's not like she's got any better places to be.

As a side note, this strikes me as yet another example of how the whole baby thing in our culture is just all wrong. Pregnancy, birth, feeding, transporting… the "normal" way of dong things seems to be the nearly the worst thing possible to do. So it would not surprise me at all if the expected way of doing nappies and toilet training is well off course.

Actually, I knew there was loads wrong about this culture before I even considered breeding. Why should common conceptions of childrearing be any different?

Scary illnesses

Yesterday the wee one came down with a tummy bug. It was really rather scary seeing it. I was at the grocery store with her in a sling facing out so she could enjoy the sights. Turns out, if I'm alone having her face outward is not a good idea. Beyond hearing her breathe and vocalise and holding her hand, there's no real sign to tell what she's doing.

So my first sign that something is wrong is she spits up and I rush to catch it with a muslin. But it soaks through and just doesn't stop coming. I turn toward the hand mirrors on display next to me, and I see her throw up again, this time out of her nose too. I get her out of the harness, sit her on the floor and clean her up. She's quiet, but not out of it. I can't tell if she feels nothing unusual's happened or she's upset and weakened beyond crying. I worry that, since it's cold out, I overbundled her and accidentally burnt her brain out.

I'm not putting her back in for the trip home. I just pick her up and walk quickly homeward. Her being sedate through the whole experience makes it worse. The world just cut out and there is just us, and blurry obstacles between us and home. 5 minutes and one panicked call later (she's not well, get the door) and I'm unbundling her on the bed. She seems fine. She's turned on her belly doing the cat pose. Then she surprises us by bawling unconsolably for half an hour. Something she's not done for ages.

L tries consoling her while I call NHS direct asking for advice. She falls asleep by the time I'm off the phone.

In the end, she throws up huge amounts two more times. I feel slightly better in that it's clearly not because I bundled her up too much. But worse too because she's clearly got something wrong. It's almost certainly due to her catching her mum's tummy bug (which we thought was food poisoning). They say it'll likely be over in 72 hours (40 more to go) and just make sure she doesn't dehydrate.

She did it again today while I was taking her down the stairs. Two very volumous vomits with stuff coming out her nose. That's still really weird to see – though it's also a good sign that something is Not Right. She seems to be coping better with it today – no 30 minute bawl session following the incident, just some patience while I run around shedding icky clothes, cleaning the girl, floor and whatnot.

So, it seems we just sit and wait and have towels at hand in case of more trouble.

Now we fly

Just over a month ago, we took the child on her first intercontinental plane trip. We went to see her grandparents, aunts and uncle in the US. Planning this journey was a lot of work. I've travelled a lot, so at this point I've got it down to an art. At least if it's just me, or just me and L. No need to plan how to get to the airport, or anything. Just set out on autopilot and don't think till we hit the destination.

This time we had to actually plan. In great detail. How do we feed and change her on the flight? How many changes of clothes do we need to bring? How many just for travelling. How do we get her and the pram to the airport with our luggage? Do we need the pram? How does security work? How do we carry her around the airport? How will she deal with the air pressure changes on takeoff and landing? What do we do if she fusses? How do we get from the airport at our destination? Our birth plan wasn't this complicated.

Or expensive. We ended up using minicabs for the London-side travel, and a rental car in the US.

The minicab picking us up at home arrived 45 minutes early since they wanted to fit in an extra fare that morning (or, as they said, traffic). We weren't done packing so all we could do was have them wait. We barely squeezed our luggage plus the folded pram in the car. So now we know how much we can take with us an fit in a reasonable sized minicab.

Rather than detailing the whole adventure, I'll just recount the interesting bits.

The wee one had about as much luggage for just herself as we did for both L and I combined. Or more for her, if you include the pram.

All the airport and airplane staff cooed over the child. Even UK immigration said awww. Only Dulles security were heartless and mean. More on that later.

We flew Virgin Atlantic, which had good parts and bad parts. The seating on the plane over was lovely. It was one of their newer planes. The "sky cot" was easy to get the kid into and out of. She even slept in it a little. We were sat next to the double-sized loo which had a good sized changing table. We had row of 5 to ourselves.

The real down side was Virgin breaking our pram. Two of the wheels just snapped off. They said they'd pay us back for the repairs, but I'm still following that up with them. Not at all impressed. Especially with their customer service: Here's all your paperwork, phone the number at the end to make the arrangements. When we got to our destination, only then did we notice there was no number in the paperwork. Or on the web site. Or anywhere. Not impressed.

They also appear to have a policy of taking 3 weeks to respond to any communication. This is not sarcasm. This is their actual policy.

Anyways, once we arrived, we got to spend some quality family time plus occasional visits to friends in the area. The little one behaved quite well through most of our social events. In fact, we benefited from her jet lag since she was not able to get to sleep at a reasonable time, instead of after midnight.

My first time alone together with the wife after the child was born was when we left her, with the mother-in-law and a bottle of breastmilk, while we went off to renew the wife's drivers license. Then shopping at Target.

Sounds romantic, doesn't it?

The worst trouble we had was car rides. The babe would sometimes just hate them. That was yet another thing which was the opposite of what we were led to believe. About 1/3 of all drives had her needing consolation at some point. Either I had to reach to the back seat and try to calm her down, or, I would just sit next to her for the duration of the drive.

We ended up not using the pram much at all – even after we got the replacement parts. It was car seat for the drive, then the sling at the other end. I did end up getting a number of amused my god, there's a baby in there when people noticed that the bump on my chest was a cute little tiny person rather than too many pies.

Flying back the UK was less pleasant than leaving the UK. Dulles has dropped in my opinion to a strip mall with airplanes. There are no changing tables at the airport. None. The family restrooms are just large restrooms with a single toilet and a sink. I had to change her on the floor. I still cannot believe it's that bad.

Security made things worse. They were nice and cooed over the babe up until the metal detectors. At that point they made us dismantle the pram, on top of all the various take off shoes, take out laptops, etc etc they usually make people do. Then when madly putting the pram and luggage back together, with just one shoe on between us, all while trying to keep the child calm, then they told us to vacate the secure area. Really. That actually happened.

I swear, if I didn't have to return to DC, that would be enough to convince me to just give up and never go there again. It's not that nice a place to warrant that sort of trouble. (Then again, arrival wasn't so bad, maybe next time I'll try leaving from another city)

The plane ride back to the UK was innocuous. The plane itself was not as new, so the facilities were less nice, but certainly passable. The cot did look like it was slept in more times than I care to imagine. This time Virgin didn't break any of our stuff, which was a bonus. Passport control was a breeze. There was sizeable queue, but they herded us to a new queue with no one ahead of us. We were stamped in by a officer in training, who clearly had not gone through her cynic training yet. She cooed the most of any public official yet over the child. That made for a nice welcome home.

I'm stopping the story here so I end on a high note

Now we have tooth

The little one's first tooth has started to peek through the gums today. This comes as rather a bit of a shock being that she's not even 4 months old and we're not supped to be getting those till 6 months.

She's been showing the classic signs of teething for almost a month now. Chewing on things. Especially my fingers. And. So. Much. Drooool. We thought this would last for a while, creeping up in intensity till teeth popped out. But no.

I worry most for L's breasts. I'm hoping the wee one shows some restraint and does not start chomping. I've heard too many stories of women giving up breast feeding after the first teeth came in. It's too soon to stop now, and there are downsides to having to bottlefeed her (like having to have bottles of milk at hand whenever you leave the house – breasts are so much easier to carry around with you).

L and the baby met me for lunch today. I've been offsite away from home for 2 days, so to make up for lost time, they came to see me in the office. To my surprise, L dressed her in an outfit I wore when I was about 5 months old. It fits her perfectly. Too perfectly – was I a small baby at 5 months? or is she large at 4?

It was all rather sweet. After work, when I got home I took out the camera and started taking pictures of her in poses I'd been photographed in as a baby. Cheesy, but I had to do it. I don't mind dressing her in the intense 70s fashions of my or L's clothes. After all, my hindbrain associates childhood and new parentness with 70s fashions. I have to actively try to seek out sane styles and colours for her to wear.

After all that, Life on Mars came up on the playlist. I joked with L about feeling like DCI Sam Tyler meeting his baby self in 1973. All the while, I swayed with the little girl in time to the music till she slowly dropped off to sleep by the end of the song.

Lovely.

All smiles

First off, it's been one year since the pregnancy test, and almost a year since I started this blog. Looking back it's amazing how the changes in life keep coming faster and faster. At the start it was Yup – pregnant. Come back in 2 months for your scan. Now we seem to hit a new milestone each week now. Every moment seems to be full with something, yet somehow I blink and four months have passed.

One of the most rewarding things so far is all the smiles. They kicked in just after week 6 – just like the books say. She started off doing this wide toothless :D with her tounge just sticking out a bit. She'd also always immediately shy away. In the months in between then and now she's learned much more control. She has a range from light closed-mouth grin all the way to full on smiling with gums and everything.

The first thing she does after waking up is smile. It's lovely, but I'm worried we might have a morning person. Even if she wakes up hungry or after a fit of complaining, once her eyes open properly and she sees me, she just gives me this heartmelting wide grin that I just can't get enough of. She giggles too on occasion, but mostly it's a silent giggle that ends in a bit of a wheeze. She needs to work on that, but at least we know what she means.

Checking in

We're all still alive. It's just been rather busy lately. With luck I can catch up on these stories:

• First smiles
• My first (and second) work trip away from the baby
• First intercontinental plane journey
• First Halloween
• First very long car ride
• First cold
• The trials of getting to sleep at a reasonable hour and still having a life

As you can guess, it's the last one which relates more to why I've not been posting

First time away

Work has picked up in intensity. This does not play well with spending time with the wee one. L is home all day with her while I work, and I tend to only see her nights and weekends.

So I'm on my first work trip since the child was born. I told them I would not travel until September. So they asked if I could travel on September first. I, of course considered this taking the piss. I ended up convincing people to come to London.

A few weeks later and I can no longer avoid it. So off to scandanavia for 3 (well, 2.5) nights away. I'm away for as short a time as I could get (they wanted another 2 days).I prepared by making an absolutely huge curry. It barely fit into the pot. I hoped it would feed L for at least a couple of dinners (she went out for din with friends one night).

That's all I could do to provide any help at all for L while I was gone. It just felt mean leaving her alone to care for the child. I'm not sure if there's anything I could do beyond finding a nanny to come in – and I doubt L would want that.

I've gotten used to being without L while on trips. Between SMS, email, VOIP and skype video being away is about as painless as it can be. But that doesn't work with the baby. I can't cuddle or change her remotely. The best I can do is watch her over skype (we set up an account for her). It helps, but, of course the hotel was having internet problems. So I got a few minutes of watching her (nice)before it just got a bit awkard.

I'm back home tonight. L has come down with something. So the annoyance of taking care of a baby alone is now the annoyance of taking care of a baby while under the weather. We have her immunisations tomorrow. So I'm going to try to take her myself so L can get a bit of rest. Which means doing early morning conference calls beforehand, then heading into work in the afternoon.

Sometimes I feel I have to take care of one baby during the day, and another (more cuddly one) at night.

We're trying something new

L has started rowing again. So we're seeing how this works as a family. We packed up the lot of us and headed down to the river. The plan: she spends some time on the water. I keep the baby calm and collected, fed and changed if necessary, until she comes off the water and can join us.

The reality: we decided to take the pram since we could carry all the various everythings in it. As an experiment we took the car seat attachment instead of the flat bad one. Which only took us half an hour and a few harsh words to put together. Bloody manuals which, for starters, you can't even tell if you're holding right side up. Let alone don't describe how to do things in any way which matches reality.

So we got out the door quite a bit later than expected. Fortunately London transit now publishes the bus countdown online so we knew we had 9 minutes to get the bus or we'd have to wait forever. BTW: this site alone has been changing my life since I discovered it. Mornings are so much calmer when I know when to leave the house.

It was our first time with a pram on public transport. We got it through the back doors on the bus. Turns out the wheels aren't very good at balancing the thing on the way in, so I've just been lifting it on both ends. Only a little awkward.

Transferring to the tube was easy since we only had a few stairs. Fortunately going early on Sunday morning meant things were not completely mad. We got a spot on the train to put the pram. I stood next to it, while L sat. I took pictures as a memento of her first tube ride. Halfway through the trip, L got out the babe and she fed up until we had to get out.

I'm writing this while she's sleeping on my lap in the clubhouse. She's dreaming that she's feeding and it's really cute. Much better than her brief meltdown when I started writing this. It's also really cute how she's startled every time anyone comes in the front door. And today is Open House day, so I'm enjoying lots of the cute.

The walk from Hammersmith was easy enough. We both bought coffees. I regretted not having a pram with a cup holder. I hate walking with coffee and spilling half of it on my poor burnt hand. Once we got to the club, the babe was cooed over – which is half the fun. I always enjoy people telling me what a perfect and gorgeous baby I have. I also enjoy all the smiles from perfect strangers. In a flippant way I do have to say having a baby is a complete chick magnet. In all seriousness though, I really do like how it breaks down barriers between strangers. It makes London a surprisingly friendlier place. I suspect I'll really miss it when she's older.

After all L's rowingmates finished doting, L got into the boat and rowed off. I took the babe out of the pram to show her her mother in action and waved as she rowed off.

Then she melted down, of course. I had enough time to do a little bit of walking before I realised she was inconsolable and needed changing. I am so glad the club installed the nice new disabled loo with the changing table. It took forever even with all the facilities. She was all bundled up for the trip outside, and getting all that off, dealing with the reusable nappies, and getting it all back on – I'm just glad no one needed the loo. I must have been 10-15min in there.

She melted down again after I left the loo. Walking up and down stairs consoled her. I spent the rest of L's outing typing away on my phone while she slept. She started fussing when the men came in (not used to well built men I guess). L's coming off the water now. I'll go down and say hi.

We caught L while she was closing up the pontoon. I had a bit of a chat with L and her crewmates before they went off to clean up. About 2 minutes later is when the baby started bawling. I had to get out the emergency bottle and feed her. She almost made it all the way til L came back to feed her. But no. She went through all 100ml of the bottle before L came in.

After feeding and a bit of natter we tried to head home. My decision to get the bus to the train was terrible. The babe melted down while we were stuck in traffic. We were pretty sure she needed changing. We dashed off the bus and into a Giraffe, since we were pretty sure they had a changing table in there.

To cut a long story short, it tools us over 2 hours getting home with all the interruptions. I learned a number of things.

• Get on and off busses and trains backwards. The wheels work much better that way
• Any outing with a baby takes forever and will drain all your energy
• Whenever the baby does a huge bottle feed, that's one huge mass of milk stuck in her mum's breasts. If the mother can't pump, that's one rather uncomfortable train ride home
• I can completely handle her for a few hours if I have enough supplies.
• and finally, I will gush about anything to do with my child. Perhaps I should gush on this blog more so my real-world acquaintances won't have to put up with stories of the wonderful way she can hold up her onesie when she's being changed.

Life with baby

It's hard keeping this up to date. The child is using all my spare time. Well, all the time I'm not a work, paying bills, phoning utilities and councils to complain about things, etc etc.

She's 6 weeks old today. She's been practicing her smiles for a bit over a week now. It's the best way to completely stop me in my tracks – just pretend to grin. I'm sure they're not real smiles yet (called social smiles by baby books), but just her way to test out smiling before she actually means it. L said that she giggled in her sleep today, but I missed that.

The biggest problem is that she does not like being still in someone's arms. I have to bounce or walk or something to keep her from melting down or complaining. It means she hates it when I sit down at the computer. Almost all social networking I do these days is via the phone. But I'm not the sort who can compose blogs on the phone. Mostly the lack of spellchecker gets in the way (and yes, I know Windows Phone has a spell checker).

She's started to (more and more) be able to sleep in a cot. Which means I can do things without having to hold her, and at the same time that L does other things.

Which brings me to a story…

The night we first got home from hospital. We start preparing the child and ourselves for bed. We'd done loads of research on what to do about beds for newborns. Our investigation lead us to this cot that attaches to the bed. So it's open on the bed side, and walled on the other sides. So it's like co-sleeping, but without any risk of squishing the child, since she's in her own space. But there's easy access for feeding, etc.

We prepared the cot with the right sort of mattress, sheets, a cloth to go under her head to soak up the goo that comes out her mouth. We tuck her in with feet squarely at the foot of the bed so she can't suffocate under the covers. We tuck her in tightly so, again, she does not die. Everything we read in the books.

She screams. And screams. And Does Not Stop. This is the first time she's really done this since her screams after she was born.

We take her out, and she calms down. I look at L and she looks at me. We had no plan B. Nothing we read prepared us for and the baby might not be able to sleep in a cot – we just stood there, dumbfounded, with a child, wondering what the hell we could possibly do.

In the end, we slept with her in the bed. Either on one of our chests, or on the bed between us. We took shifts being awake, watching to make sure she was alright, and slowly going the road to chronic sleep deprivation.

She still won't sleep in the cot by the bed. No matter how we try. But we have another cot for the living room, where she will sleep during the day (of course, if we take it to the bedroom, she'll just scream in it and no sleep). And that's where she is now.

Birth story, part 5 (final)

5 weeks later and we're… doing as well as can be expected. She's at the point where she hates being held while I type. So it's really hard to do updates. So I'll take this moment of quiet to finish off the birth story.

All told, the birth went off quite well. No real complaints from me – only minor ones. I really liked the fact that our midwife, after it was all said and done, told us how much she appreciated and was just plain honoured being there at this very special moment. I found that to be be rather sweet and made up for any of the minor grievances I had. And I really appreciated it, since she got to find out the child's name before anyone, including her grandparents. The staff were certainly good at what they did, and I've no complaints about their skills. The only real issue I had was them not understanding/believing when we told them it's likely to be a quick birth. Given how rare that is, I'm not too surprised.

The birth plan

I'll end this chapter with a record of what we'd planned and what actually happened. Just an aside, this is my first time re-reading the plan after the birth.

Turns out, anything that actually followed the birth plan was more coincidence than actual design. I don't the midwives think ever actually read the plan, but I don't really blame them too much, since I'd much rather they did the really essential bits of ensuring the baby came out properly than memorising our wishes – which they could (and sometimes did) ask us about at any point.

First off, we'd planned for a mutual friend and experienced mother to join us at the birthing centre to make sure everything went smoothly and to keep us company during a prolonged birth. The tag-team concept came from experience with tattooing. It seems to help distract the tattooee to just have conversation they can drift in and out of, rather than involve them directly. A friend and I did this with L's last tattoo, and I did that a couple of weeks before the birth with another friend. I figured, long continuous pain is long continuous pain – how different can a tattoo be from labour?
Well, the baby was born the one weekend our tag-teaming friend couldn't make it – she was camping out of mobile reception. So all plans involving extra support were out the window. But, then again, the birth can hardly be considered prolonged, so the help was thankfully not needed.
Outcome: inconsequential fail.

Please knock on door before entering — I have't the faintest idea of they did or not. I don't recall ever being surprised at someone walking in.
Outcome: incidental win.

In case of unexpected problems calm and full information with time to make choices — the only thing unexpected was L started crowning while the midwife was out of the room. It was more us not providing them time to think.
Outcome: win by circumstance.

Pain relief of TENS, breathing, massage, birth pool, gas and air — All except the birth pool, which means we hit that on the head. That said, there was no time at all to get any stronger pain relief if even if we wanted it.
Outcome: accidental win.

Call hospital in advance, request birthing pool — No answer when we tried calling before coming in. They finally understood we wanted the birthing pool maybe 5 min before the birth started.
Outcome: full on fail.

Notify immediate family on way in — oops. We did tell the in-laws after the water broke at least. Perhaps I should have read the birth plan while in the waiting room.
Outcome: fail.

Lighting as low as possible — I don't think the room even had a dimmer.
Outcome: hardware fail.

Music system set up — no iPod doc as expected. Turns out there was an unused one in room 2, where we'd spent 5 minutes after we came in.
Outcome: facilities fail

stay as mobile as possible — she ended up giving birth lying down.
Outcome: failure of possibilities.

Offer father to feel head as crowning — Oops. I forgot we'd planned that. Well, I've cuddled her head enough since then, so I don't see any loss only behalf. L got to feel the crowing head though. I was too busy finding and hitting the Call button.
Outcome: fail.

Foetal monitoring without lying down — nope. The last monitoring of the baby was why L was lying down for the birth – she was unable to get up after that.
Outcome: fail.

Keep vaginal exams to a minimum — Just the one (the can't find your cervix one), so that at least was followed.
Outcome: win.

cord not cut till done pulsing — I'm pretty sure it was pulsing a little, but I've no real basis for comparison,
Outcome: probably fail.

Father to catch baby — forgot about that one too. Oops. I was too busy staring in astonishment. I can't believe I thought I'd be on the ball enough to manage this. I'm glad I didn't – the midwife was very good about the catch-and-put-on-chest motion.
Outcome: fail.

skin to skin immediately after birth — got that one spot on
Outcome: important win.

no wiping or cleaning off of vernix — nope. We'd read shortly before the birth that a study showed that leaving the vernix on means the baby is less likely to suffer dry/peeling skin shortly after birth. turns out the only parts where the vernix wasn't removed, the hands and feet, are the only ones that ever really peeled. No idea if it's a coincidence or not.
Outcome: fail?

no interruption of contact — yup. they were very good about leaving her with us non stop till we left. She was out of our hands for a few seconds while being weighed. Then for a bit while she slept overnight (a few inches from my hand). And once more when the doctor was checking her out.
Outcome: win.

…intervention… — nothing to intervene.
Outcome: win.

placenta to come out naturally, no pulling — "plop" it fell right out. No special convincing needed.
Outcome: win.

Oral only vitamin K — they did try to use scare tactics to get us to take the injections. But it's such a tiny chance of needing it, and generally only if there is a traumatic birth or bruising. So we at least stuck to our guns on this one. I'm still dubious it's needed at all. Regardless, we finished the last oral round a few days ago, and she's still alive.
Outcome: win.

No observing students — I suppose they were all in the labour ward, which was completely full that day.
Outcome: win.

…induction… — she came out nicely on her own. No inducements necessary.
Outcome: win.

avoid formula — she managed to latch on during the first night, so no need to provide other food.
Outcome: win.

All in all, it seems there are more wins than fails. Though most are more wins due to the complete lack of complications to sort out. As I was told, a birth plan just gives the midwives something to ignore. The most important thing is we gave things some though in advance, and that nothing in the birth process came as a shock to us. Well, except (ironically) the startle reflex...

Sunday, 31 July. Most of that morning was spent doing incidentals like holding the girl and taking pictures and sending SMSs and announcements online. And drifting and and out of sleep. My plan of taking chilled coffee and storing in the fridge proved to be a brilliant idea – ice coffee kept me on the ball nicely and let L recover a bit while I watched the girl.

We got though a couple of nappy changes (chocolate-coloured meconium is surprisingly innocuous looking, though rather hard to wipe off), and puzzling at the right level of clothes that would keep her warm, but not too warm. We settled on a onesie and swaddling blanket. Eventually they told us all that was left was the paediatrician and then we could go. So we packed our stuff, readied the girl and waited. Like four hours. Which we spent taking photos, sending more SMSs, and arranging with my in-laws for take-away dinner at the flat.

Apparently the paediatrician saw everyone on the very full labour ward before seeing the two people in the birthing centre. At just before 6 the midwife took us to see the paediatrician. She asked is there anything which concerns you? – something I wasn't quite ready for, or I'd have made notes. She did a bunch of tests. She even checked to make sure the left eye (which I was curious if it was alright) was responding to light ok. Then she did the startle test, which involved her dropping the lass a tiny bit (over the cot) and catching her to make sure she reflexively stuck out her arms – which she did perfectly. The paediatrician told us she was the first infant that day to not cry at this – which made us quite proud of our wonderful child already outdoing her peers.

That and the startle reflex is really neat to look at. I still really have to stop myself from trying it. I'm sure that would be a great way to make the kid hate me.

After the paediatrician, the midwife handed us a shedload of pamphlets and paperwork, including the red book, which is the born-baby equivalent to the pregnancy notes they kept (we made a photocopy of them in advance since we knew they'd not let us leave with them).

L wrapped up the girl in a sling for the trip home. The midwife, in a bit of security theatre, then walked us out of the building, telling us security'd stop anyone with a newborn who wasn't accompanied by a midwife (which I doubt, but I appreciate the chat and company on the way out).

The walk from the exit to the taxi rank on Tottenham Court Road was the longest it had ever been. Such precious cargo, and every step a sort-of first for us, and certainly a first for her. L waited outside the Sainbury's while I looked for an available taxi to hail. A few minutes later we were on the way home. The driver dropped us off and congratulated us on the newborn, which made us both smile.

We arrived back at home at 6:45ish. Fifteen minutes later, we had barely just enough time to settle in before the in-laws showed up with chinese take-away. And thus began the wonderful madness of living with our baby girl.

The birth story. Part 4

Saturday, 30 July 7:05pm. A sense of reality starts to return a bit and the midwife mentions the placenta and having to wait for it or taking drugs to get it out sooner. L says she wants it to come out on its own. So they bring in a birthing stool (a chair with a hole in the seat) for L to sit on. I ask about weighing and the Apgar test. They say they can wait for the measurements and she's clearly fine so doesn't need poking or testing.

We look at the umbilical cord, which is a pale organic-looking tube – reminds me a bit of a pulsing sausage or something. It's nice to finally see it, having been so dependant on it working for so long. I wonder what it's providing to the baby now. Is it just topping up her air and nutrients? I mean, it was working full force just a few minutes ago, and it's clearly still running. The baby can't go long without oxygen, so it must be providing at least some of it, just in case the birthing takes a while. I'm just curious what it's doing and how the mechanics of it shutting down work.

L tells the midwife to wait for it to stop pulsing before cutting it. I've no idea if the midwife did or not, but she eventually clamped it in two places and asked me to cut it. this couldn't have been more than 10-15 minutes after the birth. I specifically mentioned in the birth plan that I had no desire at all to cut the cord, but there I was, handed the scary scissors and in a state of massive suggestion. (now I know why the neighbour named his 3rd child after two of the midwives). So I cut the cord, and a splatter of blood comes out and onto the towels on the floor. The midwife asks if she can take the cord blood for testing. Again, yeah, whatever. It's there. Help yourself.

So the baby is finally free and her own entity for the first time since she was a bouncing ball of a few dozen cells trying to find a nice place to attach to. She doesn't seem to notice, so we don't make a big deal of it. We're just staring at her and smiling.

She's this wee tiny thing with an elongated misshapen head and greyish blue skin with a fine down of dark hair on her arms and back. Her head has dark hair with drying bits of goo in it. It's lighter than mine and L's, but not a lot. She's got a V-shaped widow's peak line of light-coloured hairs at the edge of her hairline which I still don't know what's going on with. Her nails are long and rather sharp. I guess she did get my nails in the end.

Her eyes are still a bit bulged out. She favours her right eye, and is not opening her left much. The blood vessels in her left eyelid are quite visible and I wonder if she scratched it in the womb or hurt it on the way out (turns out there's no persistent problem – she's using both eyes just fine now). She has golden eyelashes. Far blonder than the rest of her hair. Rather odd – normally people have dark lashes and light hair, not the other way around. So I can't tell if her hair's dark and going light or light going dark. With that combination people might think she dyes her hair :)

She has L's nose – I was right about the 22 week scan. (turns out, looking back at the 22 week scan, it looks just like her. We couldn't guess what she looked like at the time, but looking at the scan now, it's clearly her forehead and nose and lips and chin). Her cheeks and mouth and nose look a lot like a baby picture of L taken when she was 5 hours old. She's much thinner in the face, but the resemblance is clearly there (and has been getting stronger as her face fills in). I love the fact that she's me from the side and L from the front.

Around now, the original midwife comes back from her break. She's rather surprised to have missed it all: Wow. That was fast. I'm glad it was so easy. You should consider doing a home birth next time.

After some more gazing at the child the midwife points out that L's feet have turned blue, and asks if this is normal for her. No. No it's not. So she goes to sit on the toilet instead. They take this time to finally weigh the girl. I stand next to her while they put her on the scale. 3180 grams (7 pounds) and 49 cm long. They put a nappy on her (she's already passed some chocolately-looking meconium) and hand her back to me wrapped in a hospital towel. I hold her and stare at her and smile and walk around. She's soooo light, and the first baby that I ever held that didn't melt down after a few minutes.

I say she's very light, but I weighed over a pound less when I was born. L weighed over a pound more. So my family thinks she's a large baby and L's family thinks she's so very small.

I hear a plop from the loo and L says that the placenta has fallen out. This is 40 minutes after the birth – another textbook figure which encourages me. L comes out and picks up the camera and starts taking photos of me holding the baby. It's the first photos of the child and I'm beaming at her in all of them.

L convinces me to give her the baby back. I use the lull to tell a few people about the birth. I send my inlaws an SMS saying It's a girl, but of course you knew that already – what else could I say as tersely? SMS the sister-in-law to let her know she's an auntie. And I phone my parents (curse their lack of GSM phones) and am finally able to say yes, you are grandparents now (the answer to the first question out of their mouths every single time I've called them for the past month).

Meanwhile they check L for damage. Turns out she has class 2 tearing, which the midwife explains that class 1 is minor, class 2 is deeper tear and could need stitches. Class 3 is a nasty tear, and class 4… you don't want to know. Given how nasty she described class 3, I really don't what to know about 4. They initially want to stitch up L, but the midwife who comes on after 8 (when they change shifts) says it's better to just leave to heal as is – which L is fine with.

Things start to quiet down a bit. Around 10pm I start telling non-family people about the birth. I completely forget that we made a list, and just pick a few seemingly at random (a few days later I find the list and realise that I can't be trusted to do this from memory, since I'd still not told them). I joke with L that we should call the people who gave us a lift to hospital and ask if they could pick us up on the way home from the party.

I finally turn to the bag we brought. Three bags, actually. One an insulated bag of food. Still full of all the frozen smoothies we'd planned to keep L going though the long labour. I give her one – may as well not go to waste – and put the ice coffees I brought into the kitchen fridge. I try to eat some of the emergency rations I brought. Turns out they're terrible. Note to self: don't make emergency rations in a hurry, just make your usual tasty food.

It's cold in the birthing centre, so we dress up the baby in pyjamas and a hat and gloves and socks. L is very cold due to the loss of so much mass and fluids, so we wrap her up in blankets so she can doze off. Around midnight I take a picture of the baby and try to upload to Facebook, but the phone fights me and refuses to do so. L goes to sleep on her bed-thing, I lie on the fold-out futon and we put the baby in the cot between us, all wrapped up. I keep a hand on her while I sleep.

Stuff happens with L and the midwife during the night. Something about breastfeeding. But I am oblivious to it while I "sleep".

I wake up at about 5am, and finally get the other phone to upload the baby's photo (I've been carrying around two phones for a couple of months, with SIMs from different operators, just in case one has no reception or conks out or something), though it required ages of fiddling and some annoying app updates to finally get it to work (grrr).

We realise later that, while it's cold in there, we've probably overbundled the wee lass. So we remove the overlarge clothes and just plunk her down on my chest, skin on skin, and I put a towel over us. I have the cutest sweetest most precious thing in the world sleeping on my chest and I am in bliss. I lie there with her for hours.

The birth, part 3

Saturday, 30 July, 6pm. We arrive in the birthing centre, wind our way through the halls, luggage in tow, to reception. The midwife at the desk is the one we'd spoken to on the phone earlier. Rather chipper and likeable. I bitterly wonder why she hasn't been answering the phone for the past hour. We explained the situation and she immediately steps out for lunch. Or so the wife (L) tells me later. All I saw was that she disappeared just after I gave her the hospital notes.

At this point things get a bit mad so I may have a few of the details wrong. I asked L to edit this to make sure I got it right.

They put us in a room with an unmade bed while they prepare a real room for us. We slightly settle in for about ten minutes. Then another midwife comes along to check out L, so she's moved to room 4. I grab all the stuff and L shuffles in, the TENS machine still dangling from her back, and switch in hand. The floor's still wet, so we leave muddy tacks all over the floor. Great, that's sanitary, I think, but at least the midwife cleans it up. I help L out of her pants, and she lies down on the bed to be checked. I notice there's nothing to plug the iPod into. Great. They told me they had docks for those. Grumble.

They check her blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat, which are doing just fine and not noticeably different from that morning. That's one worry smoothed out for me – having just read a story about a woman whose baby went into distress from just the contractions (how annoying is that? I mean being distressed by contractions? That's what being born in all about). Then came the first big check – how dilated is she?

For me, this felt like the first real big moment. For those who don't know, the cervix is what opens up to let the baby out (or stays closed to keep the baby in for most of pregnancy). As a general rule, it opens up to 10cm slowly over the course of labour. When it hits 10cm, then there's enough room for the baby's head (the widest part of the baby) to come out (which is usually around 10cm across, though ours was 11), quickly followed by the rest of the baby. So when I say this was the first real big moment, I mean this is what determines how long the labour's going to take. If the cervix is closed or just a couple of cm dilated, then we're likely in store for one of those 20+ hour labours, punctuated with lots of helping L focus on getting the contraction muscles to work together. On the other hand, a larger dilation means baby comes sooner, usually a few hours of hard contractions. Given L and her sister's births, I imagined the latter (L's sister was born 5 hours after contractions suddenly started. L was born in an ambulance outside a petrol station 10 miles from hospital) and expected maybe 6cm dilation and maybe some notable birth and transition stages. I was wrong.

So, the midwife waits till the current contraction is done before sticking her fingers in and says something like I can't find the cervix. It's got to be in there somewhere, so it must be in an unusual place. So I'm going to guess you're about 8cm dilated. then she left to sort out the room. While she was gone L and I discussed how that was, of course, crap. L's cervix has always been in the usual cervical place – at the end her uterus. It was just so fully dilated that the midwife could find no trace of it. So now we knew. We were in store for a quick labour.

The TENS electrodes have been slipping over the past few hours. I've had to adjust them a few times, but at this point L is sweaty enough that they just keep slipping out of place. I'm wondering if they're actually doing anything for her anymore. The midwife asks would you like some gas and air to which L responds Yes, please or at least would have if she'd have had time to before covering her face with the mask and breathing deep. At this point we'd been in hospital maybe 20 minutes.

We're left alone again for a few minutes with L intermittently breathing the nitrous. I tell her comforting platitudes about how everything is going well, and she gets annoyed about how I'm just saying platitudes about how everything is going well. The midwife comes back and L she says she has to go to the loo. I know it's just the baby's head putting pressure on the rectum. The midwife knows it's just the baby's head putting pressure on the rectum. Even L knows it's just the baby's head putting pressure on the rectum, but if it makes her comfortable, what's the harm? So into the loo she goes.

She sits there around ten minutes. We briefly discuss getting in touch with family, at least L's sister, to let them know labour's begun. But things just got out of hand. The midwife comes back and says she wants to check the baby's heartbeat. She tries, but couldn't do it with L sitting there, so L comes back and lies down on the bed-thing, and the heartbeat is found (all good).

Quick aside. The bed-thing is a curved bed with a giant bean bag chair as the pillow. So it's not very straightforward to lie on.

At this point L points out to the midwife she has the urge to push. She's not very convincing in the it's coming now front. So the midwife interprets it in a isn't that interesting to note kind of way. L is lying on the bed, which is just about the worst position possible for birthing. L just can't get up – which is going to be a real bother for the birthing. I tell the midwife we'd like to use the birthing pool. She says it'll take an hour to clean and fill up. I don't bother mentioning that we'd asked for it when we came in. L and I just look at each other and share a knowing glance of we've not the slightest chance, do we? and L asks, with just a hint of futility, can you start filling it now?

Another aside. I don't know anyone who has successfully used a birthing pool in hospital. Everyone seems to be talked out of it or given some excuse for for why they can't use it. Why do hospitals bother having one? Just to tick a box?

We need a backup to get L into a better position. I ask if we can get a birthing ball. That the midwife can do. So she leaves to get it. I have no idea if she even tries to get the pool cleaned and ready. While she's gone L lies on her right side and tells me to hold her left leg up. The TENS electrodes are still attached, clearly all migrated to the wrong positions. L has the gas in hand to hopefully take the edge off the pain, but I can't recall how much she's actually using (and she has no idea if the gas actually helped. At times it just made her nauseous). Then I see something coming out of her. I just think WTF is that? Is that a placenta? a millisecond later I realise I'm really stupid and that is a gooey matted bit of hair. Before my eyes can pop out of my head I exclaim She's crowning! to L and dive for the call button. Maybe 20 seconds later (though it felt like much longer) the midwife comes back into the room with the deflated birthing ball. well, that's not going to be of much help, now is it? I don't say. Instead She's crowning! comes out of my mouth.

The midwife replies with simply Dear sweet jesus christ!, puts down the stuff, fetches a coworker, starts putting on the blue gloves, and settles in at L's business end.

At this point the midwife says to L In a second I'm going to tell you to pant and not push, and starts adjusting L's bits to not break when the baby comes out. Then the head starts coming out for real this time and L says It burns!

The matted hair is visible again. On an elongated alien head. Which kind of answers the how can an 11cm head come out of a 10cm opening? I was asking the day before. Another contraction and the head is out. It's grey – something I was a little prepared for by all the BBC documentaries on birth I'd been watching. But it's still weird. I look closer and I say That's my ear! On the side of the baby's head is clearly my ear. I'm astounded.

Then the grey torso slides out at the next contraction. There's a face and a body. With limbs. In one move, the midwife scoops her up and onto L's chest. It's less than an hour after we got to UCH.

She's breathing – I can hear her breathing. Several breaths later she cries. Not for very long, but enough to make it clear she's ok. She settles back down to gentle breathing again. She's belly down on L's chest and L is cooing at her and telling her she's so sweet.

I ask the midwife It's a girl, right? I'd not seen the baby from the front yet. Just her face and back. She quickly checks and says, Yes. I've known it was a girl for about 30 weeks, but still, part of me didn't entirely believe it.

The midwife takes a towel and starts brushing her off, she claims it'll get the blood flowing to the skin. I say leave the vernix on, which she promptly ignores and says I am, even though she's clearly not. Whatever. The baby is safe and here and clearly alive and well in L's arms. I'm grinning like a madman. At this point I see the midwife taking note of the time and writing it in the notes. I'm distracted when I look at my child's feet and say to L I know those toes! Those are your toes!

To be concluded...

Birth story, part 2

Saturday, 30 July, noonish. We arrive back home after the being checked out at UCLH. We decide to take things easy and just sit at home watching movies all day.

After a bit of hemming and hawing we decide to bail on the 1:30 meeting of the NCT group. It was at a nearby pub, so we could easily get there – and it would be better than sitting an waiting for the other baby shoe to drop. But quiet and at home won out – mostly due to the fact that all but one couple had emailed saying they couldn't make it. We found out later that one couple had just given birth a few hours previously, just didn't have time to send apologies in advance. Which made me quite glad we decided to stay at home.

The wife was starting to feel unidentified twinges. She had no idea if they were contractions or not. She just kind of guessed they must be since what other uterine twinges are you likely to get the day your water breaks? To be safe, we attached the TENS machine. It's supposed to not work if you start too late, so starting early felt like the best way to go. We put on My Big Fat Greek Wedding and had a light lunch. It's not a great film. But it's a fun film, and a mindless film. We tend to watch it when we need an amusing distraction from the world.

The wife started contractions around 1:30 pm. 5 minutes apart, no pain at all. At the time it wasn't clear if that means the TENS works or the contractions weren't real yet. At this point we were pretty sure that these were not fake Braxton-Hicks but that the baby was coming that day.

When the movie was over we debated if we had time to watch another full length movie, or stick to something shorter in case we're interrupted. We decide on something shorter. She has her first real contraction at 3. At that point it occurs to me then that this is real and we can actually handle this.

The wife phones UCH again. They say to sit tight. At home.

So we sit down to watch the episode of V with the birth of the alien baby hybrid. It nicely set the mood. Over the course of the show, the contractions got stronger, but not too bad and not regular. By the time the show is over we're both having a hard time focussing on it – her with the pain, and me with the concern. When it ends, around 4:30, we give up watching things and just concentrate on the contractions. They're irregularly every 3 minutes or so, but skip every now and again, and are strong enough the wife tells me to note that they're strong. The wife phones UCH and tells them this. They focus on the skip every now and again instead of the every 3 minutes which we found to be the important part. They say to not come in yet.

It's getting awkward calling her "the wife" all the time. I'll switch to "L" from here on out.

Eventually I remember we have music for this. We made a Labour playlist. I start to get out the iPod to play it, but L just says we're going to hospital. Now.

So at 5:00 I start calling UCH to tell them we're coming in. No answer. Over and over again. For 15 minutes (FFS). I can't call both a taxi and the hospital at the same time. Ok, technically I can since we have more than one phone, but I can't focus enough to do it. So I keep trying to call the hospital – especially to let them know to get the birthing pool ready. And while it's ringing I use L's phone SMS some nearby friends and ask if they could give us a lift.

They're just about to head out to a party, so they're happy to stop and get us on the way. At 5:30 we're in the car and on our way. L is in the front seat still timing contractions and making smalltalk. I keep saying potentially unhelpful things like don't go anywhere near Arsenal. Around now contractions are coming every 2-3 minutes and lasting about a minute. Still, L keeps up polite conversation, and stops bothering counting contractions. I am impressed. Later she tells me what is wrong with the contraction timer app she was using and what a good one needs to do. If anyone wants a collaborator for writing one, I can put you in touch.

We get to UCH just before 6, pile out of the car with our 3 bags, and say very brief thanks and goodbyes. We head up to the birthing centre on the 3rd floor. Fortunately we've been there before and can easily find it. Unusually, the lift is there, so there's no where's the sodding lift panic.

Since I was never able to get through to them, the midwives are not ready for us. L sits in reception having contractions while I give them the pregnancy notes and our birth plan. They say thanks though I clearly see that they don't actually read out birth plan – they just file it in with the notes. They start cleaning a room for us, and take L to another room to wait.

To be continued...

First day out

We took the little one out to lunch today with my parents. It was our first attempt at a restaurant . It seems to have been a success. It was the wife's turn to carry her in the sling (I took her last time). We did take longer than expected to pack the Bag – mostly because every time we'd packed before was on way to midwives and such, and we knew they'd have stuff if we forgot it. This time we were going to the real world, and we'd have to make sure we had everything we needed.

The wee one spent the bulk of the meal in the sling. The wife only dropped food in her hair once. The baby slept or was quiet the whole time. After the meal she seemed to be getting a bit warm, so we took her out of the sling. That's when the next table over noticed and decide to pay tribute to her by cooing, asking her age, and informing us they have 3 girls in their twenties between them.

This seems to be pretty common. It's happened every time we've left the house with her. Later in the meal one of the staff asked how old she was. I told him 8 days and that this was her first meal out. He spread his arms in welcome and smiled. I don't mind this at all. A friendly bit of natter with complete strangers is a good thing, and something that city life seems to miss out on. I don't like the unsolicited advice about how we're doing it all wrong — but only one person's ever done that. The Isn't she cute and You're brave leaving the house so soon I can live with.

The place had cooled down by the time we had coffee, so we put her back in the sling. The wife drank hers with a straw with the excuse that most baby burns are from spilt hot beverages. We clearly are still quite a bit paranoid. The walk home in the rain showed that, me walking close with my arm around the wife making sure she can't slip and fall. And us stopping at every intersection waiting for the green "walk" light regardless of how little traffic there was.

All in all a success with no crying or meltdowns or anything. I wonder how old she has to be before she's too fussy to take out?

Completely unrelated — I keep pondering the adage sleep when they sleep. I don't know if I'm missing something, but it's the opposite of what I find I'm doing. When she sleeps, I do dishes, talk to adults, go online, read, blog, and variously maintain the household. When she's awake I try to calm her down if she's annoyed, or cuddle, or just stare at her. I can't see how I'd do the opposite. Ignore her and do work when she's up or crying. Perhaps this too will make more sense later.

The birth story. Part 1

Saturday, 30 July, 5:30 in the morning. I woke up to go to the loo. I came back to find the wife was awake. Both of us could not sleep. The baby was wriggling a bit. The wife played games on her PDA while I tried to get back to sleep. Eventually we both dozed off.

8:30 exactly. The wife taps me on the shoulder twice. Annoyed, I thought This better be important.

My waters just broke

Oh

And, to myself, I thought damn, I was enjoying that sleep, I guess I should get up. I mean, it's not like she was having contractions – water can break at any time, but we should probably do something about it.

So, after a bit more harsh wakeup, we get up. I check the heartbeat – it's just fine, and she's definitely still moving. Now that water is going the wife's belly is all solid. Which is an interesting change from its previous fullness. She asks me to check the colour of the water. To which, in my colourblindness, I respond I am not going to be able to differentiate a subtle green tint. Use your magic colour vision to tell.

After a bit more blather, we eventually call birth centre. There's a nice person on the other end who had a calming effect on us. She redirected us to the foetal assessment unit (MFAU). They are not nearly as friendly. They start out by asking if I'm calling from within the hospital. No, I'm at home. I was transferred on the phone to you (from someone who seemed to have more of a clue, to my annoyance). They don't want to speak to me, they'll only speak to the wife. I say fine, and in a great relief, hand her the phone, saying she'll only talk to you and walk off, relieved that I don't have to deal with that call.

I go off to put the dishes in the dishwasher. I don't want to come home after a week to moulding dishes. I finish as the wife gets off the phone. They say come in for a speculum exam. Leave the bags at home and just come in, she tells me. But without any contractions to go along with it, I figure we have 92 hours max, 48 most likely. So we will see the baby soon. There's no need to rush now. I wonder if we have time to make the NCT meet at the pub later.

Our roles seem to have reversed. The wife is panicking and worried about foetal distress. I'm calm and don't see anything untextbookish or worth worrying about. The heartbeat is solid. She's moving a bit less – but there's so little room for the wee one to move around in. I suppose the foetal assessment unit put some panic in the wife by implying she was out of the midwives' hands and now only fit for the labour ward. I figure it must be the clueless person on the other end of the line confusing the matter. Water breaking is hardly a birth complication.

So at 9:30 it's not-very-rushed breakfast of smoothies for everyone. I bathe, since this could be my last time for days. The wife doesn't since she thinks she's guaranteed to get messier from here on out.

We pack an ipod, camera and the pregnancy notes. Neither of us have any cash, so no taxi for us. So we take the bus which miraculously comes soon. We transfer to the tube at Finsbury Park. It looks like it'll be an Arsenal game later, so it could be very hard to get home afterwards. I push that to the back of my mind for later.

On the tube there are plenty of seats, but the wife makes a man move out of the priority seat anyway. I giggle. I'm guessing it'll be her last chance to do this and it gives her some sense of control. This, of course, was violated by london transport inspectors accosting her and demanding to see her card on the way out of the station. Bloody twats. She's clearly very pregnant and exiting the tube at a big maternity hospital. The these two London Transport idiots surround her, stopping her from going anywhere and don't let her say more than Do we have to do this now — before cutting her off and demanding ID. Really uncalled for and certainly did not help her mood.

After that unwarranted attack from London Transport, we make our way to the UCLH MFAU. When we arrive there just after 10am, there's no one there. A nice very pregnant woman sitting in the waiting room lets us in. People with appointments start showing up, and we let them in. Eventually some staff show up just as we started regretting not making pancakes for brekky.

We're finally seen at just before 11. The midwife is very friendly and bubbly. Thankfully – our mood had been slowly darkening since that fist phone call at 9. The midwife spent most of the time chuckling. Everything is fine. The waters are clear, her blood pressure is fine. She decided there was no point checking dilation or anything since it's just a question of waiting for contractions to start. We're now at 80% chance of a spontaneous labour in the next 7-10 days. She asked us to come back Sunday morning (the next day) after the morning shift change at 9ish. They'll check the state of the baby, and if there's no strong need to induce, they'll start the wife on antibiotics (since once the waters break the risk of infection goes up) – though the midwife was rather keen on inductions. After that morning I had not intention of putting any effort into making it there on time. I figured if we did need to go back, we'd have a proper leisurely breakfast first.

So out we go, and back home on the tube. We stop on the way to pick up some cash so we can get a cab next time.

Now we are three

The baby was born at 7pm on Saturday night. Things kicked off not very long after posting that I should be on the ball and ready to jump into action. I'm really excited to have her around, though I'm really really knackered at the moment. Which is why it's taken so long to actually post about it.

She's so small and cute and adorable. She has the wife's nose (I knew it) and chin, and my ears and brow.

I took a lot of notes on the day, which I'll fill in and post later, possibly in parts as I have the time. Then I'll decide if I turn this blog into a fatherhood blog from a pregnancy blog.

Other stuff

Baby is being a bit active tonight. Not sure if that means we should expect her any moment, or she's reacting to the Vietnamese food we had for dinner, or she's just bored. I just have to be prepared to jump into action at any moment.

My mother is doing much better now and is all clear to fly, which is good. Spoke to her on Skype earlier and she's sounding rather excited about the whole thing (my father is, of course, excited too). She informed us that she was born 3 weeks late and only 7+ pounds, which isn't much more than the wee one is now. Which seems to imply already she is taking after her maternal grandmother.

Nothing new

We had the Maternal Foetal Assessment today. Which means we got another scan to figure out why the baby is still in her mum. They waved the magic scanning wand around and ticked off lots of measurements on the screen. Everyone seemed happy. The wife was all healthy. The baby was all healthy. Nothing to be concerned about, beyond her tardiness. In the end we found:

• Her head is 11cm across. The cervix dilates to 10cm. That will be fun.
• She weighs about 6 pounds 12oz. Which is a bit small, but more than I weighed when I was born. So I'm not worried.
• She has hair. The technician pointed it out to us on the monitor See that white stuff there. That's hair. Considering both the wife and I were born with hair, this should not be a surprise.
• She has a 66% chance of being born in the next 7-10 days, on her own, without intervention. Which would be nice, since we just finished the raspberry leaf tea today.

After that, we saw the midwife. She told us the baby's 40% engaged, so at least the progress bar is moving forward. They want to induce next Thu. If the inducement is insufficiently enticing for the wee one, they'll have to put the wife on an oxytocin drip – which means labour ward only, no birthing centre. So we're going to try to hold out till at least the 8th before accepting the induction. Everything is going so smoothly, I don't want to break the pattern just so the medical team can have nice looking numbers for this quarter.

On the trip home we impulse bought a new printer and a pint of ice cream. Both were cheaper than the new PC we actually do need, since mine is slowly falling apart. Off to test the hardware now.

Now we are 6 days overdue

I'm slightly surprised to have gotten this far after the due date. I know first children are usually late – average of 8 days I hear. Most of my NCT group has already sprogged. Only the wife and one other are left. Practically every day we get an announcement and a baby photo in the inbox. I don't mind. I'm enjoying the extra rest and lack of nappy changes.

I started my paternity leave today. So I might just have enough energy to post more than once a week. Or take care of the baby once she arrives. The past few weeks at work have been mad. The past few weeks preparing for the baby have been mad. The past few weeks of construction and repairs to the house have been mad. The past few weeks helping the wife submit her PhD thesis have been mad. But that's all done now. We just have to wait for the little bundle to come out. Perhaps then we can experience true madness :)

The in-laws are visiting. It's both nice and an exercise in patience. I'm a bit of a control freak so I'm uncomfortable when things are out of my hands. Like I come home to glasses put away in the wrong cabinet. I should really just appreciate the dishes put away in the right place and that I didn't have to do it. We're also having loads of problems with mobile phones. They've been through 3 so far, each older and simpler than the one before. The latest is 6 years old and really quite simple. It was working fine until they locked it and have been unable to unlock or use it since. It's currently off (how'd they manage to turn it off without unlocking it? it was on full charge) in their flat while they're out and about. I guess if the baby comes we'll just have to let them know via more traditional means.

My parents are still in the States. My mother's been ill and is waiting for an all clear to get on the plane and see her granddaughter. Perhaps the little one is holding off waiting for both grandparents to be around. That's awfully kind of her. That and it's awfully kind of her to have given her father a few late lie ins before she shows up.

And one more thing

I just remembered the thing I left out of my post the other day about stuff that is different now about... Googling your child's potential names. After we'd settled on what we wanted to call her, we sat down to see who else had those names in that order to see if it was anyone dodgy. Turns out, we're good.

If google were there 40 years ago my parents could have avoided naming my brother and me after Julius and Ethel's children.

In other news, the due date has come and gone. No baby. Now we begin the awkward wait.

Adulthood

The wife and I had been discussing the possibility of having a kid for some time, but it's always been some far off fantasy – like what we'll do when we buy that penthouse flat in Manhattan. We kept passing various milestones – my parents were 31 and 32 when I was born, they had their first kid at 30 and 31, etc etc. It was awkward at first. Somehow I'd imagined I'd have had a kid by 35. When I hit 35 I knew I wasn't at all ready. Now that I'm 40 I keep vacillating between it being ok or silly of me to have waited til now. Having a kid can't be that hard. I mean, every single one of my ancestors has bred. And most of those at a younger age than me.

A bit of background... I went straight from undergraduate uni to do a PhD without any real job in the meantime. Looking back, that did delay "adulthood" a bit – hardcore academia is so different from the real world, and being a student in the UK, one can get by without ever dealing with real-life stuff. Sure I was an expert on immigration, living cheaply, finding rental property, etc. But I'd no real idea about how the grown up world worked. It was fun.

After I graduated and got a real job, flat, relationship, etc etc, I still didn't feel grown up. I felt no different after any of those milestones. I once asked my mother when she finally felt like an adult. She said it was only after she'd had a child. So I'm kind of wondering how things will change for me after the wee one is in my life. I am already starting to see changes on how I view things. I've spent the past 9 months in a kind of instinctive look-after-the-wife mode, and now I'm entering the look-after-the-family mode. I can see my perspective shifting, and it's weird being able to notice it. It's actually brought the wife and I closer together. Not that we'd been having issues. It's just you hear stories about people having children to save their marriage. It never occurred to me there might actually be a relationship-enhancing effect of children (or at least pregnancy). We've been very happily involved for almost a dozen years now, and I'm rather surprised to see how some of our remaining rough edges have been smoothed in the process.

With regards to my parents, I now realise that my life is so different from them that there's no point using them as a metric. I'll take their advice, but I'll tempter it with my perspective and see what happens. After all, I find that by now I have a decent sense of how the world works. I know now that few people have any real clue about what they're doing and all of civilisation is held together with ossified strings and glue. Homeownership has done far more than anything else so far in life in making me feel adulter – partly because of all the repairs. Once you see a house taken apart and put back together, there's a lot of is that it? feeling I just never got as a renter.

Anyway, I am both ready and not ready for this. I'm pretty sure I can take what the world is going to throw at me. On the other hand, I know changes are afoot and I wonder if I'd have been better off the way things are now. I guess I'll just have to wait to find out.

98.7% cooked

We seem to have finished the last of the major house construction. All the curtains we can have up are up, the floors are under our feet, and roof properly over our heads. I really wish we didn't leave it to the last minute to do all this, but bad timing really conspired against us. What makes it worse is that I can't tell if the wife is in nesting mode if we've been doing house prep stuff for the past 3 months.

A co-worker of mine’s wife gave birth today. He went on paternity leave yesterday. When we heard, the whole team went to the pub to have a drink in his honour. I'm sure he appreciated it. I would have liked to go, but I had to get to the shops to buy baby things before it shut. At least I feel a bit more confident at having enough stuff for the first few days of the wee one being around.

Now all we need to do is pack the bag.

So very different

I was talking to my parents over Skype a bit ago and my father mentioned that things have changed since they were new parents. I agreed and pointed out that we were chatting overseas over video for free. Since then I've been thinking about all the ways things are so very different now.

Birth philosophy has changed, making it far closer now to how it was in the grandparents' time. Except there's far more washing of hands. For a while everything was clinical with mothers giving birth on heavy drugs on their backs and feeding the kids of this highly artificial but easy to store cow's milk product. Now we know on your back is probably the worst way. The coccyx just blocks the whole exit making things much harder. Birth positions are quite varied – under water, on a bouncy ball, leaning against the wall, etc etc. Drugs are still strong, but much more targeted to avoid affecting the offspring. Breast feeding is still a bit awkward in the UK, with about 20% of children still getting breast milk after 6 months – but at least medicalness and legislation is trying to make it easier.

Nappies. As far as I can tell, there are like 30,000 alternatives for nappies. At least we've got velcro now, and don't have to deal with pins.

Information is soooo much easier to come by. The wife posted a comment about how the baby seems to have engaged, and she got lots of replies saying things like my baby dropped 2 weeks before I gave birth and other really useful things. It's like having the joint experience of all your friends and relatives, and a few strangers on tap. I can hardly imagine how hard it must have been just not knowing and not knowing you didn't know.

We've known the sex of the child for about 26 weeks now. It makes picking names much easier. And we've already got a bunch of clothes. Not that getting unisex clothes would have been so hard – I have no idea what people used to do. Just do the bulk of the shopping after the birth?

I don't know what they did in my parents' day when it came to exposing children to music. Especially while they're still in the womb. Put on record after record? Put on the radio and hope for something good? The wife and I put together a playlist of 3200 songs combining our favourite appropriate contemporary music and a huge chunk of classical music. We just hit play and let it go until we need to turn it off. The other day work gave me an iPod nano as a baby shower present. Quite nice of them – I really appreciate it. I've whittled the playlist down to the 2500 songs that fit on it. We can now play it all day at a fraction of the power consumption of the PC we used to use. Plus UCLH apparently has iPod docks, so we we can have music for the birth without needing to being a laptop (no wifi, what's the point?).

Some months ago I made a list of things cultural things I wanted to export the kid to. A fair chunk of that was meant for when she's older and can read herself or watch TV, but one thing I really want to do is use Skype video and get her grandparents to read to her. I really want her to get to know them, and them living on another continent would otherwise make it hard. But as long as they're comfortable reading to a small camera… I just have to figure out where to position the camera so it looks like they're making eye-contact.

Remaining NCT classes

I've been quiet for a bit. It's a combination of the job and getting the house ready. She's not popped yet. Anyway, I never wrote this bit up, so I may as well do this now while I have time...

The second NCT class was a few weeks back. It went well and was a reasonably productive use of time. It was unusually hot for England and I seemed to be the only one not boiling in the room. I don't see how they could all be hot and me not - though I was sitting under the air conditioning for part of it. None of the pregnant women seemed to believe me when I said it was the coolest spot and they could have it.

The updated expectation count is 2 known girls, 3 known boys and one guess of each. I'm a little let down that we don't have the drama all the books prepared me for. I can't see how any of these couples will break up between last week and next week – perhaps the people in the book took courses longer than 3 days over two weeks? We were supposed to have eight in the class, but one couple gave birth before the first class. I'm curious if their experience will differ from anyone else's. I mean, will going on the course have made a difference?

For one of the sections we split into preggos and partners. The partners' group focussed on fatherhood and the role we'd play. The women's group more focussed on squidgy things. One father mentioned his concern with gang culture, and how he was afraid of his son being drawn in. One of the fathers was a teacher and said that it was easy enough to stay out of the gang culture as long as you didn't actively try to be part of it – which is a mixed relief.

There also was a bit of discussion in our group of how to fix all the things our parents did wrong. One person mentioned his insufficiently affectionate father, and how he wanted to change that. I mentioned how my parents told me once they were trying to fix all the things they saw wrong with how their parents raised them. I, similarly, am going to try to fix all the things I see my parents to have done wrong. I said at the time Either we will slowly move to perfection, generation after generation, or, more likely, each generation will just repeat the mistakes their grandparents made.

One couple were both women. The non-pregnant one was convinced they were having boy, and was a bit worried about the impact of not having a male influence. I mentioned that it's generally not an issue and that there's plenty of cases of men raised by one or two women who turn out perfectly well. Or at least no more screwed up than anyone else. Every family is going to be missing some aspect of some gender role. You do the best you can between you, your friends and family. I'm pretty sure someone quoted a few lines Philip Larkin's famous poem at this point, but that may have been later.

I was reminded of Patrick Macnee who was raised by two lesbians in 20s and 30s, and spoke well of the experience. From what I understand, he seems to be reasonably well adjusted. That and I'm impressed that they managed to get away with such a relationship back then.

I'm glad to see that all the group pregnancy events we've been to so far has had at least one lesbian couple. Admittedly the Meet the ISIS Midwives event at UCLH may have just had two friends rather than a couple – it's hard to tell when there's no signs of affection between them. Anyway, it's nice to live in a place where the only issue is that the course leader has to remember to say partners instead of fathers.

The next weekend was the breastfeeding workshop. It was a more air-conditioned venue, but otherwise wasn't as nice. I learned stuff, but it felt rather rushed. The course leader wasn't as friendly or forthcoming with personal anecdotes. The most interesting part was watching the video of newborns being placed on their mothers' torsos and crawling slowly by themselves into place to feed. Instincts are nice!

On a separate note, the wife is getting close to the end. A bit irritable due to all the discomfort – swollen painful hands and feet, back pains, etc etc. I don't know if that means she'll go into labour soon, or it just means she's reached the end of her tolerance. We'll see in a few days.

How we got here

So for the past several years, the wife and I have been discussing the theoretical child. Not everything, but alot. The point was not to plan out the kid's life, but a whole bunch of what-ifs. The birth, raising, schooling, citizenship – all kinds of things, even whose body parts and traits it would be better off having. If we could answer them and come to an agreement then we knew we were closer to being ready.

We're control freaks. Both of us. Everything needs to be planned out. It's just the way we are. It seems to be working out for us so far.

We didn't talk about it with friends or family. Talking about it would make it too real. We felt that telling people would make it more concrete and force ourselves down that path whether it be a good idea or not. Or the opposite – sometimes discussing your plans means you're less likely to actually do them. We had to be really ready and really be sure we were doing this for the right reasons. So, to cope, it had to be our little secret.

We decided on names literally years ago. One name for a girl and one for a boy. Of course we won't tell anyone until she's born. Somehow we feel if we did it would make it less "us" and ruin the name. We may be control freaks, but we're not always rational.

A couple of years ago we decided on a code name for the kid. The wife did not want to use any of the standards - bean, alien, bump, bambino, etc. She suggested Willow. This was long before we even started trying to conceive. We needed it so we say things like Which room will be Willow's in the new flat? without feeling like we were committing ourselves to breeding. The name is based on an offhand comment my step-cousin-in-law made to the wife at the wedding, making a joke on my surname, Rosenberg.

We bought a flat almost a year ago after searching for a very long time. We'd always "known" that this would be the place where we'd have a baby. That thought went into our evaluation of every place we saw. In the worst case, we'd just end up with extra space if we chose not to breed. It did end up with us having to come up with lots of on-the-spot rationalised avoidance of questions when people'd ask Why do you need 3 bedrooms? or Stoke Newington? Is she pregnant?

We didn't decide for sure to sprog until last year. The wife had a completely irrational pregnancy scare. There were no real signs, and the maths didn't work out. There was no way she could be pregnant – but she got in her head anyway that she was. So, being the rational/irrational creature she is, she sat down and figured out how we'd handle it. She came to the conclusion that we could handle it, and it wasn't such a bad thing after all. A month later we started trying.

It's a year later now, and we're just over two weeks from the due date. Willow could come at any moment. We have, I think, everything we need. It's just not organised enough – it's all in piles on whatever random flat surfaces we can find. Plus our home is still in a state, with curtains needing to be put up and furniture moved to at least the right room. And the bag. We need to pack the bag. And by the bag, I probably mean 2 or 3 the bags with just-in-every-possible-case stuff for all of us. In the meanwhile, all parts of our lives are coming to a mad peak. All we need to do is get past it and ride the waves down into whatever familihood awaits us.

Baby shower

I had my baby shower on Sunday. Well, it wasn't a normal baby shower. Besides the fact that I'm male, of course. It was closer to a low intensity stag do. A few of us went out for drinks and bowling. The basic concept was that it was my last night out before knuckling down and preparing for the birth. After the bowling, the wife came to join us for a few hours of random natter. Definitely fun, though my bowling is terrible. I really must get better before I take the kid bowling – she has to believe I'm wonderful at all things.

Or maybe not. I have promised myself I will try my best to not lie to her. It's hard. Adults have a really hard time not lying to kids. They're just so willing to believe anything. I've caught myself at it a few times, and I'm conscious of it. It's really hard to stop, even though I know that it's just wrong. It must be hardcoded in or something.

There are a number of things I promised myself I would not do, but since I've been doing all kinds of reading on the subject I find that there a logical reasons for a lot of them. Like why people talk to babies in baby talk. However, I am firmly of the mind that babies should be imitating you not the other way around. But it seems that some mimicry is just easier for them to process. So we'll just have to see where I draw the line on dignity.

On that note, I've decided that the baby shower will be my last night of any but the most trivial of drinking. If the wife can pop at any moment, I want a clear head to be always at hand. After the shower we had a little scare that she might be in labour. My reaction was simply Holy shit! I'm not ready. Turns out she wasn't and that this was a known effect of the raspberry leaf tea. But at the time we didn't know, so I had to go around and prepare things. I found that after all those G&Ts that I could not keep more than a single instruction in my head at time. The scare only lasted half an hour, and afterwards I was able to stop panicking. But I realised that I needed to be constantly on the ball for the next month, since I'll have to have some working brains at a moment's notice. It's an interesting lesson to have learnt.

Why have a child?

A friend of mine asked me why I was breeding. Not in a confrontational kind of way. She was honestly curious. She likes kids just fine, but has no desire at all to have children. She wanted to know how to recognise the urge when it presents itself. When and how did I feel the need to have a child?

It's very hard to explain. Alot of it is purely chemical. That much is obvious. You just feel a need for it. As I explained to her "you're just a bag of meat that thinks it's a person." Your body just slowly, over a bit of time, kicks in with all this need and this undirected love that just needs to go in this direction. It's completely different from the love and need that drives you to get involved with someone, though parts of it feel similar. It's clearly something inside that drives you.

It's not just chemical. If it were, it'd be easier to resist. I wouldn't do it if I couldn't justify it to myself. There's a part that reverses cause and effect. It's hard to explain, so I'll just put it in the words I told her...

I love being alive. It's really great. I think it's just wonderful. And it's the best gift I could possibly give. I love my child so much, I want to give her the most astounding thing I can think to give. Yes I know there's a paradox: I love her because I gave her this gift, that I gave her because I love her. But there it is. She didn't ask for it, She might not want it. She might not appreciate it. But it's a gift, and I hope she enjoys it as much as I do.

Defensive

I find I get rather defensive when in public around the wife. I stand between her and traffic, crowds, etc. There's a bit of intent in there – I do consciously consider that she doesn't have a good feel for her size, and people won't think to look for where she ends in her middle. But it goes beyond that. I find once I start I can't intentionally stop. So I find myself slightly leading her when walking. I'm not quite ready to throw myself in front of a car to protect her, but I am ready to do something. I dunno – maybe gently push her back? It's weird and hard to tell when I'd do. Odd when instincts take over like this.

A day at NCT

Today was the first NCT class. For the uninitiated, the NCT is the National Childcare Trust a charity which, amongst other things, runs antenatal classes. First off, a whinge from me about while they have student rates, they're only for students under the age of 22. Why even bother having a student discount at that point? why not just call it a young person's discount? How many 21 year old pregnant women do you know that are flush with cash because of they have full-time jobs?

Ok… that rant over, it was an interesting class. All the women were first-time mums-to-be around 34-36 weeks along and seemed to be in the 30 to 40 year old range. It was good to see I wasn't the oldest partner there, and the wife wasn't the youngest or oldest either. I'm assuming the matching up of people in similar circumstances was intentional. The first thing I noticed was how very pregnant all the women looked. I'm used to be around a single rather "full" looking woman, but the extra 6 made for an exercise in comparing bump size and shapes. Some carried small or hid it with their clothes rather well, but most were in the tight or flowy attire that emphasises them as eye-poppingly wow-that's-pregnant. It felt a bit leery to look around and judge everyone like that, but it's really hard to not be amazed at how the body transforms.

A lot of the day was nicely informative. There was stuff I'd not come across before in books or in documentaries. So it was helpful going (still undecided if it was worth going – I'll wait till it's done to decide that). Chatting to a nice sample of other couples who are facing the same issues also helped (Oh, you've not packed a bag yet either, I feel better now). I suppose that's one of the main benefits of the class. So, of the lot of us, there's 1 girl, 2 boys, 2 who don't want to know, and 2 I didn't get around to asking. Most people have decided on at least one name, and no one wants to say what that name is (though people are happy to say what names they've ruled out). There's a roughly even split between the Whittington and UCH, plus one planned for Homerton and one debating between home birth and Homerton.

The bits of the day that felt most awkward for me were the breathing exercises. Partly because I won't be doing it – she will. And partly because I kept having to stop myself from dozing off (see last night). I question the wisdom of, right after lunch, asking everyone to close their eyes, imagine a relaxing place, and breathe slowly. They also suggested trying to match breathing between the two of us in order to be a calming influence. That so can't work for me. I've tried it before. My lungs are literally (according to the peak flow meter) twice the volume of the wife's. So if we try to match breathing I start to suffocate due to lack of enough oxygen.

We're back again tomorrow to learn about pain relief, drugs and suchlike.

Another night out

Last night we went out clubbing. Not sure if it will be the last time before the little one comes, but I'm sure we won't have much time left. The wife sat down pretty much the whole time. She started on a bar stool. Eventually she ended up sitting at the desk chatting with the door staff. A nice perk of the pregnancy is even those working there didn't ask her to get up and move so they could work. The downside was that when the door lass wanted to take a few minutes for a loo break or a quick boogie, we both ended up managing the door, taking dosh, stamping hands, etc. Still it was a fun night out, even though she never got to the dance floor. I did manage to dance to a few songs. I felt I really should make the effort even since I discovered that last time I went out dancing it did wonders for my out-of-wack shoulder.

There was another pregnant woman there – which was nice to see. Usually the wife is the only one. She was only 28 weeks along, and visibly more mobile than the wife. And, of course, we had the usual chat about all things sprogly.

I do have to stop myself from thinking This could be my last night out for a while every time I do manage to go out. I really should be more optimistic. I'd much rather accidentally never go out again than to have to keep pointing out to myself I should make the most of what's before me.

Home Stretch

From today we have 4 weeks to go til the due date. The wife's doing well, though the hardcore pregnancy effects are starting to take hold. Especially the feet swelling. I doubt we'll be doing much in the way of marches anytime soon. Milk production seems to be kicking off. Which means I expect more and more achey breasts.

We saw the midwife today. The wee one is head down, but not yet engaged (thank sod). Heartbeat's doing fine, she's the right bump size. So all seems good.

I'm adjusting my life a bit too. No more work travel. I'm also hoping to get my big work project done before the birth. Due date's the 22nd. Project completion on the 27th. So there is a chance. But I'm also worried that during some important meeting or workshop I'll get a phone call saying "birth in 2 hours" and I'll have to drop everything and run. We're also trying to get all the work on the flat done in time. At least get the home into a liveable state so we can fill it with baby things and stuff. In the meanwhile we're living in the dining room until all the bedroom floors are done. Fun! I've been moving all the furniture in the flat from room to room. Each time I move things I seem to be clumsier and clumsier. Cursed narrow Victorian hallways.

I keep being shocked to realise it's four weeks left. I keep thinking it's five, which is just fine. But when I remember it's four, I kinda head to panic mode. I just need to make sure I don't actually panic.

I do look forward to the kid being around, but also I do like her where she is. It's fun having a mystery wriggle-beast in the wife's belly. Plus no nappy changing yet – I'm not looking forward to that, tho I suppose I'll just deal with it when I can. I've got the intensive NCT classes starting tomorrow. I hope they do actually prepare me for what's in store. I'll be really annoyed if they're no better than reading a selection of books - they're not cheap.